After the theatrical launch of his presidential campaign Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz now faces a massive hurdle: raising the tens of millions of dollars it will take to mount a year-and-a-half long campaign. The Texas Republican and tea party darling is months behind his competitors in recruiting the megadonors and bundlers essential to a credible GOP primary bid. He’s not well-liked among cash-flush lobbyists. And his uncompromising policy positions and role in forcing the government shutdown in 2013 didn’t exactly excite the financiers and business executives who make up the elite donor class. Those considerations, along with the need to...

UPDATE 1x: State Rep. Mike Unes released the following statement: “It easy to kick a person when they’re down, but I’ve always strived to help a person up. I have reached out and offered my support to my friend, Congressman Schock. Obviously, this is a sad and disappointing day for Central Illinois. It’s unfortunate to have to address this issue so quickly following the announcement, but I have heard from a number of community leaders urging me to seek this position in the coming special election. (SNIP) PEORIA, IL - Discussion and debate has already begun about who will run...

<p>Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky were among the top Republicans receiving high ratings from the influential antitax Club for Growth, which released its annual scorecard of House and Senate lawmakers on Monday.</p>
<p>Mr. Cruz , along with Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) and Rep. Matt Salmon (R., Ariz.), make up a select group of lawmakers from either the House and Senate who can boast of a perfect 2013 and lifetime score from the group. Those three, along with Reps. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.), Tom McClintock (R., Calif.) and David Schweikert (R., Ariz.) were the only lawmakers to receive a perfect 100% score for 2013, according to the group.</p>

Likely foreshadowing the attacks to come, the influential Club for Growth warned Monday that it will make sure that voters are aware of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s “poor” record on taxes and spending if he runs for president. “As Mike Huckabee weighs the pros and cons of a second presidential candidacy, he should know that the Club for Growth PAC will make sure that Republican primary voters thoroughly examine his exceptionally poor record of raising taxes and spending as governor,” David McIntosh, Club for Growth president, said in a press release. “In a year in which GOP voters appear...

Washington — John McCain might want to watch his back. The Republican senator from Arizona says he’s leaning toward running for reelection next year. And if he does, the Club for Growth is on the case. The club is famous for backing successful conservative primary challengers to more-moderate Republicans, such as Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana in 2012. Two conservative House Republicans are eyeing a possible challenge to Senator McCain, and the club’s new president sounds interested. “We will watch that carefully,” David McIntosh, the new president of the Club for Growth, told reporters Tuesday at a breakfast hosted...

The Club for Growth was among the Beltway groups that battled against the “establishment” and egged on the government shutdown. To its credit however, its business membership stayed out of the immigration fight rather than join the ant-market right-wingers who want to restrict the U.S. labor market. And unlike outfits like the Senate Conservatives Fund (who tended to pick outlandish, losing candidates), the Club for Growth backed Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and now-freshman Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). Under a new president, David McIntosh, the Club for Growth now has a choice whether to be an outlier group or...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's (R) announcement Saturday that he is leaving Fox News as he considers running for president again has regnited an old feud between himself and the conservative Club for Growth -- a spat that dates back nearly a decade. “In a year in which GOP voters appear likely to have several good pro-economic growth candidates to choose from, Mike Huckabee’s big government record would stand out from the crowd, and not in a good way," said Club for Growth president David McIntosh in a statement Monday. Huckabee, a strong retail campaigner with a loyal evangelical Christian...

It is a fairly safe bet that next to the Koch brothers, Heritage Foundation, Senate Conservative Fund, and the Club for Growth, no-one in Washington was as excited with the results of the midterm elections as corrupt Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. It is also likely that McConnell has yearned to be Majority Leader throughout his political career, and although he may end up winning that coveted title, he will be Majority Leader in name only because pure conservatives at Heritage Action, Club for Growth, and the Senate Conservative Fund already have anointed Texas Ted Cruz as de facto leader of...

MADISON, Wis. — One year ago, about an hour before dawn, police surrounded the homes of several Wisconsin conservatives and then hit them with floodlights. Police didn’t draw their guns. They didn’t have to. Garish light blinded the groggy targets of the secret probe, startling neighbors. The uniforms, the lights, the early hour got everybody’s attention. One of the targets says police threatened to use battering rams to break down the front door, but the targets let them in. Armed with warrants approved at the request of prosecutors, investigators searched the homes for evidence of a political crime. The fact...

Think of every area where the GOP has strayed from its conservative roots. The bailouts. TARP. Out-of-control government spying. Job-killing corporate cronyism. There is one man in Congress consistently saying “no” to making government bigger and less accountable. His name is Justin Amash, and the establishment has taken notice. Big business wants to ensure voters elect Republicans who will keep the perks flowing -- from taxpayers’ bank accounts and right to their pockets. They’ve even created a feel-good way to describe such a Republican: Pro-business. And that’s exactly the kind of guy they’ve found in Amash’s primary challenger. Amash goes...

State officials in Mississippi are warning groups backing state Sen. Chris McDaniel that their efforts to organize poll watchers for Tuesday's runoff might be illegal. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), the underdog in his primary runoff fight with McDaniel, has been pushing African-American and Democratic voters to turn out for him on Tuesday to try to expand his share of the vote. Under state law, Democrats who did not vote in the first primary round are allowed to vote in the GOP runoff, but conservatives backing McDaniel have argued the law prevents voters from supporting a candidate in the primary that...

The victory notched by tea party Republicans in the Nebraska Senate race was modest, but they'll take it in a season that has yielded few bright spots so far. Ben Sasse won the GOP nomination for the seat being vacated by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb. Sasse was the closest thing to a tea party candidate in the three-man race, largely because he feuded last fall with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the epitome of establishment Republicanism. But Sasse is hardly the out-of-right-field firebrand that some tea partyers cherish. A college president with degrees from Harvard and Yale, he worked for...

The average salary in the U.S. is not $7.50 an hour, as Mr. Obama seems to think, but $23 an hour — or triple the minimum wage. The jobs report told us something else that is crunching the working class. Workers are having a harder time than ever finding a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job. Employers we talk to tell us this is partly due to ObamaCare rules that are holding many new positions below 30 hours a week. (Since when is 30 hours a week a full-time job anyway?) The White House's new proposed overtime rules are another misdirection play: Mr....

Nebraska Senate candidate Shane Osborn seems to have made a habit of, one might say, overreaching during this campaign.First, there was the misrepresented memo: In an effort to defend his military service, Osborn had a friend in the Pentagon write up a memo saying that Osborn was authorized to land in China, put it on official Navy letterhead, and release it without proper authorization. As the Omaha World-Herald reported, Osborn’s campaign then circulated that memo as if it were an official Navy document. Osborn has since apologized. Now, Osborn is claiming to have the support of 51 economists from across the country. ...

If youâ€™re wondering why this otherwise prosaic Bloomberg piece about Penceâ€™s national future begins with a mention of the Koch brothers, itâ€™s probably because the guy who wrote it worked for Paul Sarbanes and, briefly, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz before resuming his career as an impartial reporter.But never mind that. Is Pence the dark horse? Â“I have no doubt that he would make a great president,Â” said Steven Chancellor, the chief executive officer of Evansville, Indiana-based American Patriot Group, the parent of a company that makes ready-to-eat rations for the Pentagon. Â“He certainly distinguished himself in the HouseÂ” and is Â“off...

GOP Senate candidate Ben Sasse announced Thursday he raised more than $850,000 in the first quarter of the year, significantly more than his main challenger in the race. Sasse made the announcement on Twitter. Another Republican candidate, Shane Osborn, announced earlier this week he raised more than $550,000 in the first quarter of this year. Osborn is a former state Treasurer and Navy pilot and his main rival is Sasse, who serves as president of Midland University. Last week, conservative group FreedomWorks withdrew its endorsement of Osborn and said it would support Sasse instead. They are among four GOP contenders...

In a major blow to former Republican state Treasurer Shane Osborn’s candidacy for Nebraska Senate, national conservative group FreedomWorks is withdrawing its endorsement and backing his main primary rival, Midland University President Ben Sasse, instead. At issue, FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe said in a statement, is the unspoken support Osborn is believed to have from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “Both Osborn and Sasse are great people, and this was not a decision taken lightly. The question at the heart of this decision is, who would caucus with the Freedom Caucus, and who would fall in line with the...

Madison — A federal judge kept alive a lawsuit Tuesday attempting to throw out a long-running secret investigation of fundraising and spending by conservative groups during Wisconsin's recent recall elections. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and others have been looking into whether the Wisconsin Club for Growth or others illegally coordinated with any candidates during the recalls. In the most prominent race, Gov. Scott Walker in June 2012 became the first governor in the country's history to survive a recall election. The Club for Growth and one of its directors, Eric O'Keefe, in February sued prosecutors, investigators and the...

Republican House Speaker John Boehner will spend next weekend at a Ritz Carlton event hosted by an anti-tea party group devoted to fighting conservatives within the GOP. Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will be among 28 House members attending a $5,000-a-head event hosted by The Republican Main Street Partnership’s advocacy group, Red State reported. Donations will reportedly go to the anti-tea party super PAC Defending Main Street, which by February had received most of its funding from labor unions. The event will be hosted at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Nassau County, Florida. The Republican Main...

WASHINGTON | -- A new attack ad, set to the tune ''Pop Goes the Weasel,'' portrays Sen. Arlen Specter as a clownish jack-in-the-box who votes blithely for tax increases. But the 10-second spot doesn't come from his Republican primary opponent, Rep. Pat Toomey of Allentown. It's the work of a maverick political group that calls itself the Club for Growth, which stands to boost its own clout if successful in Pennsylvania. If Toomey wins, he'll owe a huge debt of gratitude to the club, which says it has helped him raise nearly $1 million for his Senate bid and has...

The conservative group Club for Growth has changed gears and is supporting establishment GOP candidates in primaries. Launched a decade before the tea party made life difficult for moderate Republicans, the club quickly rose to the political forefront while supporting challengers to incumbent Republicans who it felt were not conservative enough, according to the National Journal. In 2012, the fiscally conservative organization backed tea party candidate Richard Mourdock’s challenge to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and vilified veteran Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch for his voting record. The group also targeted 10 moderate House Republicans. But the political action committee has suddenly...

Mississippians appreciate Sen. Thad Cochran because he has been so effective for our state and our people. He recognized the federal disaster assistance laws that were in place before Hurricane Katrina were grossly insufficient to deal with the worst natural disaster in American history. Because of the respect he enjoys and the influence he wields on behalf of our state, he led the effort that passed new emergency disaster assistance laws that not only helped the Coast rebuild bigger and better after the storm, but his legislation became the model for future disaster assistance. This is but one obvious reason...

When he was still a member of the U.S. House, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., spent years forcing his colleagues to vote on dozens and dozens of amendments stripping earmarks -- that is, special funding provisions for individual projects -- out of appropriations bills. He nearly always failed. It was a long, lonely fight that infuriated many of his colleagues, but Flake eventually won. His crusade shamed the Republican leadership into banning earmarks in 2011, after they took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. That ban remains in place today. It all seems like a distant memory now. But the...

Top Republicans are hoping for a happy beginning to the next, 114th Congress, with the GOP taking control of the Senate and forcing President Obama on his heels for the last two years of his term. But in the House, the clouds are already gathering over the first day of the next session, when the chamber votes to elect a Speaker. “My sense at the present time that the Speaker doesn't have the support of the conference,” says South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan about John Boehner. Another member of the House privately estimates that 40 Republican lawmakers would vote...

The conservative Club For Growth released its annual scorecard for 2013 on Monday, bestowing two Republican U.S. senators â€” Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah â€” and four GOP congressmen with 100 percent ratings for their voting records â€śbased on issues relating to limited government and economic growth.â€ťThe four congressmen with perfect ratings for 2013 are Republican Reps. Matt Salmon, Trent Franks and David Schweikert of Arizona and Tom McClintock of California. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan got a 99 percent rating in 2013 â€śbut because of rounding has a 100 percent LifeScore,â€ť the group said.â€ś2013 saw...

National Review ^ | February 13, 2014 | Chris Chocola,Chris Chocola, a former congressman from Indiana, is the pres of the Club for Growth

When Speaker of the House John Boehner said that conservative groups like the Club for Growth have been “misleading their followers” and have “lost all credibility,” I didn’t pay much attention to it. After all, members of Congress are constantly saying the Club doesn’t matter — even though it’s belied by the facts: Since 2006 the Club’s PAC has helped nearly 50 endorsed candidates get elected to Congress. Some of the party’s brightest stars — senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Ted Cruz of Texas, congressmen Ron DeSantis of Florida and Justin Amash of Michigan —...

MADISON, Wis. – Political activist Eric O’Keefe told the Wall Street Journal he’d been subpoenaed in a Democrat-led John Doe investigation of Wisconsin conservatives. That simple act of speech could land O’Keefe, director of conservative advocacy group Wisconsin Club for Growth, in jail. Under Wisconsin law, individuals who violate the state’s John Doe secrecy oath may be held in contempt of court. A legal expert familiar with the investigation says chances are good Bruce Landgraf, the Milwaukee County assistant district attorney who launched the investigation, will go after O’Keefe. “(The prosecutor) wants to conduct his program without any interference. I...

"...Ben Sasse is the rare candidate who can clearly and forcefully prosecute the case against ObamaCare, not only because it’s an unconstitutional assault on our liberty, but also because he’s read every word of it.” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola...

It took a tea party insurrection that disabled the federal government and wrecked the Republican brand, but after months of handwringing, establishment Republicans are preparing to attack ultra-conservative ideologues across red America. From Alabama to Alaska, the center-right, business-oriented wing of the Republican Party is gearing up for a series of skirmishes that it hopes can prevent the 2014 mid-term election from turning into another missed opportunity. But this will not be a coordinated operation. It will be messy, ugly, and prone to backfiring. And if the comeback succeeds, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in...

The conservative Club for Growth on Monday launched a new ad campaign in support of Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) primary challenger – the latest in a quickly launched campaign against the longtime senator. The Club and another conservative group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, both endorsed state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the race last week. The Club’s new ad pitches McDaniel as a “Constitutional conservative with backbone” who has “stood up to the big spenders in both parties.” It makes no mention of Cochran, but instead pitches McDaniel as an alternative to business as usual in Washington and shows pictures of...

U.S. Representative Dennis Ross, a Florida Republican, said he would support a broad spending deal that didn’t include changes to the health-care law, becoming the first Tea Party-backed House lawmaker to publicly back off the fight that has shut down the government for five days. Ross, ranked among the House’s most conservative members by both the Club for Growth and the American Conservative Union, said he shifted his position because the shutdown hasn’t resulted in changes to the Affordable Care Act, which started Oct. 1, the same day government funding ran out. The shutdown also could hurt the party, he...

The House Republican “leadership,” and we use that term in the loosest sense, is preparing to confirm once and for all that it is a principle-free zone by scheduling a phony vote to defund Obamacare. The smoke and mirrors procedure cooked-up by House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia calls for sending the Senate a stopgap spending bill together with a resolution that would alter the text of the bill once it’s enrolled for presentation to President Barack Obama – the so-called “enrollment correction” would bar funding to carry out Public...

Attorney Bryan Smith earned the Club for Growth’s first major endorsement of the 2014 cycle, but he said he made the decision to challenge one of Speaker John A. Boehner’s top allies in Congress independently of the cash-flush, conservative group. ....... Smith is challenging eight-term Republican Rep. Mike Simpson for Idaho’s 2nd District. He got the Club for Growth’s attention after the group launched a campaign against several Republican incumbents, including Simpson, called “Primary My Congressman.” ....... So if Smith makes it to Congress, would he back Boehner in a leadership race? “We’re talking about an event that would take...

In South Carolina, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been attacked in television ads for his support of immigration reform. In Tennessee, GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander is ducking criticism from Tea Party groups that his overall voting record is too moderate. Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, faces angry conservatives in his state for not joining an effort by some in his party to block the federal budget unless it defunds Obamacare. For these Republicans, the only uniting factor is that the criticism is coming from their own party. The reasons they are under attack vary from one group to...

The conservative Club for Growth is pushing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to use the threat of a government shutdown to deny funds for ObamaCare. The group urged McConnell on Wednesday to back an effort led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to filibuster any government funding bill that includes money for the healthcare law. Lee has been circulating a letter summarizing the plan. It has 15 signatures so far, according to the Club. "If Sen. McConnell is committed to defunding ObamaCare, then he should sign the Lee letter," said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola in a statement. "We...

Congressman-turned-lobbyist Steve LaTourette, speaking for moderate Republicans, has attacked the free-market and the stridently anti-establishment Club for Growth as "a cancer on the Republican Party."It's K Street versus the Tea Party again in the bitter civil war within the Republican Party.The Club for Growth came up as the scourge of liberal Republicans. In 2000, the group got behind conservative state legislator Scott Garrett, who was challenging liberal Republican Marge Roukema for the second time in a northern New Jersey district.Roukema edged out Garrett in the primary, but the threat of another primary challenge, backed by a more powerful Club for...

The Club for Growth’s political action committee announced Wednesday that it will support Rep. Mike Simpson’s (R-Idaho) 2014 primary opponent, attorney Bryan Smith. The conservative PAC is openly soliciting suggestions for which GOP lawmakers it should target in primaries. Smith represents its first crowd-sourced endorsement. Simpson has a lifetime 58 percent score on the Club for Growth’s scorecard — ranking among the most moderate Republicans in the House. But he comes from one of the most conservative districts in the country — one that went 64 percent for Mitt Romney last year.

House Leadership Crashes Into Outside Hurdles On Bills GOP's Toughest Critics Are Inside The Party, Outside The Houseby Tamara KeithApril 28, 2013 5:12 AM This week, the House was set to vote on a bill modifying the president's health care law. It was a Republican bill, supported by the leadership, but it ran into trouble, and it was pulled from the floor before the scheduled vote.It's an example of the kind of obstacles Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, faces in getting legislation through the House. In a number of recent cases, his problem hasn't been the Democrats as much as members...

I had fallen out with Senator Pat Toomey in the last year when I realized his plan to balance the budget in ten years was no plan at all. I consider a balanced budget to the be the top issue and that when a politician says they have a plan to do something in ten years, they are not serious. Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush promised 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2014 when No Child Left Behind was made into law a decade or so ago. Now, Senator Toomey has stepped into the waters of tearing...

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters on a conference call moments ago that his compromise bill with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on gun background checks “doesn’t change in any way” his “conservative record or views.” The former Club for Growth president acknowledged he was out of his usual legislative area on the issue, but “it became clear to me a bill of some sort was very likely to reach the floor” that would be “badly flawed,” so he reached out to his friend and neighboring state senator Manchin to sit down and talk. “You’re probably used to hearing me talk...

“The Club for Growth will not oppose tomorrow’s vote on the debt ceiling,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in the statement. “The Club for Growth will, on the other hand, strongly oppose any efforts during the upcoming debate over the continuing resolution and sequester that fail to arrest out-of-control spending and put sensible limits on the growth of government.” That's a major reversal for an organization whose primary mission is to force lawmakers to curb government spending. Until now, Club for Growth has demanded that any vote to increase the debt limit include a balanced budget amendment. The...

Two days after Republican infighting swirled around House Speaker John Boehner's unexpected decision to pull a Hurricane Sandy relief bill from a potential floor vote, a top conservative group is urging the House of Representatives to vote against the bill. The House is expected to vote today on the first part of the bill, a $9.7 billion flood insurance bill. Andy Roth, the Club for Growth's vice president of government affairs, said in a statement that the federal government should not be involved in providing flood insurance. Here's the group's full statement: _____________________________ The Club for Growth urges all members...

WASHINGTON - Chris Chocola likes taking on his party's establishment and beating them at their own game. That's what he does for a living and he's helped pull off some big upsets. In 2007, the former two-term Indiana congressman took the reins of the Club for Growth, a free enterprise group that supports pro-growth candidates who favor low taxes, oppose job-killing government regulations, and seek fiscal policy reforms to expand and strengthen our economy. When Chocola, who has a business background, became its president, the Club was a relatively small organization, supported by about 35,000 contributing members. Under his leadership,...

Former Reasoner David Weigel has an interesting article up that seeks to answer why there aren't any Club For Growth/FreedomWorks/Tea Party/Paulista-style primary-election challenges to the worst of the Democratic Party's status quo (like, say, the execrable Dianne Feinstein). This section in particular is unintentionally revealing: Two months ago, Progressive Insurance founder Peter Lewis left the Democracy Alliance, a lefty donor coalition. Earlier this month, billionaire George Soros made his first 2012 political donations—$1 million each to America Votes and American Bridge 21st Century. That’s $23.5 million less than he gave to liberal groups in 2004. According to David McKay, chairman...

There have been many studies out on the “tea party congress” and just how tea party it actually is. One study last year noted that 70% of candidates who went to Congress under the tea party banner were voting just like the Republican Leaders they ran against.Probably one of the best places to get a sense of this is the Club for Growth. Why? The Club ignores social votes and focuses only on fiscal votes — spending issues more than anything else. The tea party candidates went to Congress not just to repeal Obamacare, but were really motivated by out...

The Tea Party has lost a number of its top election targets this year, leaving Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) to emerge as public enemy No. 1 for national conservative groups — and poll numbers suggest they could get their man. Groups including the fiscally conservative Club for Growth, Tea Party-affiliated FreedomWorks and the National Rifle Association have increasingly prioritized defeating Lugar, and social-conservative groups like Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families and the Eagle Forum have endorsed Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), Lugar’s primary opponent. Mourdock remains largely unknown to voters, but in a recent poll he trailed Lugar...

Yesterday, the Club for Growth released a statement saying that the Ryan budget was “on balance, a disappointment to fiscal conservatives.” We applauded the strong pro-growth reforms in the bill, but the reasons for our opposition were twofold: First, the budget doesn’t balance within 10 years, or for that matter, even 20 years. Our country is currently enduring unsustainable trillion-dollar deficits. We cannot wait until 2040 — the year the Ryan budget balances (page 84) — in order to arrest our ever-growing national debt. Second, we are opposed to how the budget dismantles the annual sequestration spending cuts enacted into...

The conservative Club for Growth on Wednesday came out against the new House Republican budget proposal authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.). The Club faulted the Ryan plan for not balancing the budget quickly enough and for turning off the automatic spending cuts triggered by the failure of last year’s supercommittee. Ryan and House GOP leaders are facing continued unrest among Tea Party-backed conservatives in the House over the details of the Ryan plan, which does not balance the budget until 2040. The Club for Growth statement could embolden a floor rebellion against the 2013 budget. “Despite containing...

The National Rifle Association is supporting tea-party favorite Richard Mourdock in his GOP primary race against veteran U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar. National NRA lobbyist Chris Cox is scheduled Wednesday to announce his group's support for Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer running against Lugar in the May primary. The Mourdock campaign confirmed the endorsement Tuesday. A handful of high-profile conservative groups have lined up behind Mourdock in his bid to oust Lugar. The anti-tax Club for Growth threw its support behind Mourdock last month. Lugar's supporters have opened a pair of Super PACs recently to raise unlimited funds to support his...

An Irmo financial advisor and political activist has died after a rock climbing accident in North Carolina. William “Bill” McAfee, 40, died Monday afternoon after falling about 30 feet off a rock face, said Detective Ricky McKinney of the Rutherford County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Department. McAfee was in an area popular with rock climbers near Rumbling Bald, which is north of Lake Lure, McKinney said. McAfee had climbed too high past his last anchor in the rock face and had too much slack in his rope when he lost his footing, McKinney said. “He fell right next to the person belaying...